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Taking his first interview as president with the Arab TV news station Al-Arabiya, Barack Obama sought to deliver a message of respect to the Muslim world.
"We are ready to initiate a new partnership based on mutual respect and mutual interest," he said, echoing a line from his inauguration speech.
"Now, my job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well being of the Muslim world that the language we use has to be a language of respect," he commented.
"I think that what you'll see is somebody who is listening, who is respectful," he respectfully noted.
"We can have legitimate disagreements but still be respectful," Obama orated.
Get it? Respect, respect, respect. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Obama says the United States will be respectful to the Muslim world. If you are scratching your head (and you should be), it is because the United States has been respectful to the Muslim world.
It may be worthwhile to ask, has the Muslim world been respectful to us?
Burning American flags? Not respectful. Chanting “Death to America”? Not very respectful. Hanging George W. Bush in effigy? Not much respect in that. Knocking down the Twin Towers? Well, you get the point.
Instead of being disrespectful to the Muslim world, the U.S. has been sacrificial.
In 1991, America led a coalition to push Saddam Hussein out of Muslim Kuwait. In 1993, American troops lost their lives trying to provide humanitarian assistance to Somali Muslims. In 1999, the U.S., along with NATO, ended ethnic cleaning being perpetrated against Kosovoar Muslims. In this century, fighting back after the ruthless Sept. 11 attacks, the United States liberated tens of millions of Muslims from cruel and sadistic rule in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Is the United States perfect? No. But I think we deserve some credit for putting American troops in harm's way time and time again to protect innocent Muslims, sometimes when there was really no American interest at stake.
So it is somewhat baffling why President Obama feels it is necessary to emphasize that he plans on treating the Muslim world with respect. That has been standard American policy.
During the Al-Arabiya interview, Obama was right when he said "I cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians, and we will hunt them down."
In a similar vein, is it not hard to respect governments who brutalize their populations and sponsor those very terrorist organizations of which Obama speaks? So, yes, the Muslim world has generally been respected by the United States, but a better question to ask is – do many of the governments in the Muslim world merit respect?
Muslim governments (and non-Muslim governments for that matter) clamoring for respect should remember that respect is not a right. It has to be earned.
[This post was adapted from my North Star column The Muslim World Can't Get No Respect?]
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Comments
02.04.09
Saying "the US has been respectful to the Muslim world" is such an erroneous claim I'm not sure where to start. The whole supporting the occupation of Palestinian territory might be a good place...
But I will tell you the major problem with this article is your vast generalization of "the Muslim world" to mean all Muslim people, organizations, and governments. This is a really poor generalization. The general population in the Arab world is nothing like their leaders. They are also nothing like al Qaeda. And they have nothing to do with radical Islamists; in fact, the majority of them are NOT radical Islamists. Listing things like "knocking down the Twin Towers" and using it as an argument that the Muslim World has been disrespectful to us is completely illogical.
A terrorist group did that. Not "the Muslim world." Those are NOT interchangeable terms.
One thing you forgot to mention in this article was the entire point of his interview: he just appealed directly to the Muslim people instead of to their leaders. These, as Obama knows and pointed out in his interview, are normal, innocent people who haven't done anything wrong but have gotten the short end of the stick from the US for decades. I know their leaders aren't all great. And I know the Muslim world gets a terrible rap because of radical Islamist orgs. like Al Qaeda. But should the entire Arab world suffer because of the actions of a few? No. And that's what Obama gets, and that's why he communicated directly with the Arab people through al Arabiya (not, I would point out, Al Jazeera). They are suffering because of the actions of others -- and they DO deserve our respect.
02.04.09
We disagree on some points, but I think you should read my full article. I address some of your points. For instance, I write in my full article, "The totalitarian governments that populate the Middle East, on the other hand, have much for which to apologize – to us and to their own people." I also mention how many governments in the "Muslim world" brutalize their own populations. I do make distinctions beteen Muslims and Muslim governments. I don't say Muslims don't deserve respect. I say many of the governments in the Muslim world don't deserve respect.
Unfortunately, there has not been enough protest against al-Qaeda inpsired terrorism in the Arab and Muslim world. Over cartoons, people take to the street. But where are the people taking to the streets in angry protest against al-Qaeda? That said, if you read some of Lawrence Wright's recent work in The New Yorker, you can see a shift in al-Qaeda's fortunes. Many Muslims have died in their attacks in recent years and they are facing a backlash from these actions. But these radicals that threaten the West are a product of the Muslim world and it is incumbent upon good and decent Muslisms in the Arab and Muslim world to vocally oppose the wicked ideology of al-Qaeda (and other such groups) more loudly and voiciferously than is currently the case.
Anyway, thanks for the comments.
02.04.09
Respectful, as in bombing weddings?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jul/03/afghanistan.lukeharding
02.04.09
Hi, Jamie. I read the full article and there are some valid points in there that I agree with. There are still statements I'd dispute though -- claiming that Muslim governments brutalize their populations, for instance, without any supporting evidence... I also wonder what you define as a Muslim government, when the only government that is officially affiliated with Islam is Iran -- the rest of the countries in the Middle East have more religious diversity than we think. And none of them are officially affiliated with Islam at the state level, anyways.
I still don't think the US has in any way been sacrificial in its attitude to the Middle East. US foreign policy in the Middle East has always been about protecting US interests, not protecting the people of the Middle East -- and therein lies the problem. You can say we've been sacrificial, and we could dispute that claim forever, but at the end of the day we will always be viewed by the millions of people in the Middle East as the country that comes in and causes problems when our own interests are at stake, but doesn't actually care about humanitarian problems in the Middle East. If we were trying to be the noble country that helps people for humanitarian reasons, there's a lot more we could be doing to ease suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. But, we're not. Instead, the US has sold the weapons that allow that violence to take place, and that has contributed to how we are viewed in the Middle East.
I'm not apologizing for Ahmadinejad, Assad, Mubarak, Qaddafi, or any of their other leaders. Yeah, some are a little crazy. But the crazy also comes, in part, from years of being marginalized by the Western world. Showing them respect will a) make them want to cooperate more with the US and b)totally flummox radicals like bin Laden and Zawahiri whose success relies on actively promoting anti-Americanism.
You are right in pointing out that there is definitely backlash among Muslims against radical Islamist groups. But I would argue that there are more Muslim peacemakers than you think- plenty of people are starting to speak up about the fact that radicalism that we see in the news is not representative of the Muslim faith. There's an interesting report out on this from the US Institute of Peace (http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo_patel/2009/02/muslim_pea...). There's a lot of good things going on in terms of interfaith understanding and peace movements in the Muslim world and in the Muslim diaspora abroad -- they just don't attract as much press attention as radicalism...
02.04.09
As Nisha said, you are confusing the Muslim World with specific groups who happen to be Muslim. The Muslim world did not knock down the Twin Towers, and there's some debate about our preemptive Iraqi intervention, the millions displaced and the death toll which for Iraqis was startlingly large even if you believe the tapped down government released studies and not the don't believe the Lancet studies or their like.
The answer to the question is subjective, from a world-view there are many, over the last few years, who have asked "does the United States Government" deserve respect, which is also a valid question considering not only our failed foreign policy, but our failed national policy.
That there are dangerous groups, and that the groups most dangerous and threatening to us are Islamic Fundamentalist, can't be denied. That this somehow should prevent a call to respect the Muslim World in general is ridiculous.
02.04.09
Nisha- It is a fair point to ask for clarification on "Muslim government." I used Muslim, rather than Islamic, to denote that I was not referring to just Sharia-based governments (btw, Iran is not the only example of a government where Sharia is the law of the land. Sudan and Saudi Arabia are two definite examples.) I can't agree with you that somehow the Assad regime exists because the Western world marginalized Syria. Everything that is wrong in the Middle East cannot be blamed on the West. They have to take responsibility for their own house. As for your reference to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, let us just say I think we will have to agree to disagree.
Olivia- Read my article carefully. I say many governments in the Muslim world do not deserve respect. I do not say Muslims do not deserve respect. In fact, I say, in different words, that many governments in the Muslim world have disrespected their own people.
02.04.09
@ Nisha - "But the crazy also comes, in part, from years of being marginalized by the Western world."
NOT AN EXCUSE. Every person, all the time, in every moment, can choose to do better, to do right, and to desist from the wrong. Regardless of previous actions against a person or group, one can always choose a better way. Blaming the Western world for making Muslim radicals crazy is akin to blaming a rape victim for her short skirt. There is never permission for violence - at the individual or global level. I read Jamie's post as a call to point out that, as he sees it, Muslim governments aren't working toward the greater good, as America (he believes) is, and as such, they are not deserving of the respect given to those who do, at the government level and the individual level.
@Jamie, thanks for a bold and insightful post.
02.04.09
Anna -- I did say in part. I didn't say it was the sole reason nor was I apologizing for them. However, I'm not blaming thew western world for making radicals crazy. I wasn't talking about radicals - I was talking about leaders and heads of state in M.E. countries. They are not radicals. I'm arguing that the Western World's treatment of the Arab world has made them frustrated because it is harder to run their countries when the US has to meddle in their region of the world all the time for our own interests. That certainly isn't the only factor, though, and I definitely didn't mean to say the Western world deserves sole blame for everything. But I think you missed my point -- I wasn't talking about radical groups in that point nor was I justifying violence used by radicals, I was talking about political/govt leaders and their frustrations with dealing with American foreign policy.
And if America was working towards the greater good the last eight years -- maybe we were, maybe we weren't -- the rest of the world definitely hasn't seen that. Obama is trying to show the world that we really ARE working towards the greater good, and that's a good step for him to take.
02.04.09
It's also worth noting that different cultures have different ideas of respect. If your goal is to show someone that you respect them, it helps to know what they consider respectful.
You may not agree with all that they consider respectful, or be willing to provide all of that. But at least the decision on how to provide respect is an informed one.
02.05.09
Why have you posted this on Brazen Careerist?
Looking through a sample of posts from the front page, it sticks out like a sore thumb as having nothing to do with business or careers. So why post it here?
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02.05.09
Hi Nisha,
What happened over a Jewish Cartoon is known to all.But you don't see any protests in Muslim world over the terror attacks in Mumbai.Guess the same happens in Islamabad,what would happen?
Religion is like a family.If one member of your family is a murderer what should you do, its your responsibility to see that he doesn't kill the innocents,you can't just brush away from the responsibility.
What I mean to say that its not that 0.1% people support terrorism and 99.9% are innocents.There is a significant % which passively/ideologically supports terrorism.
We should have the courage to say and better not be pseudo intellectuals and take a contrarion view.
02.05.09
Anonymous - you can't throw all the blame for terrorism on Muslims. Islamism is a completely separate ideology from the religion of Islam. There are radicals in EVERY religion - but I don't see Christians apologizing for Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing or the "God hates fags" radical group, nor do I see Catholics apologizing for the terrorism in Northern Ireland. We would never even call it "catholic terrorism." We wouldn't associate it with religion at all. And I'm not saying we should associate any of those things with religion. What I am saying is that you shouldn't hold Islam to a different standard than you would other religions.
And before you go making claims about what percentage of Muslims support terrorism, I'd like to see some evidence backing that up.
02.05.09
In 2005 for 'British Muslims', it was 1 in 4 supposedly, according to a poll for this interesting article. > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR200508...
That article discusses the Irish terrorist element alongside that of the bombing attacks in London. It also mentions, quite importantly, that much of IRA funding came from 'Irish' Americans.
The ending paragraphs of that article are particularly poignant, mentioning that if prominent people within the communities (whether they be Irish Catholics, British Muslims... or any other lot) actually stand up against that which their 'own' extremist minority believe in, things may change. The problem is, and was then for the Ireland, that no one did and the violence continued for decades. As someone who lived in Northern Ireland for 20 years during the 'troubles' I am absolutely disgusted to think about the number of upstanding, law-abiding people who knew and could help and yet, did nothing. Absolutely nothing. And many, many people died because of it.
"But the appeal of foreign violence can also be destroyed, or at least reduced, if community leaders agree that they want that to happen. If British Muslims deploy every one of their religious, civic and business institutions, they may, over time, be able to eliminate the climate of tolerance that made the London bombings possible, just as Irish Americans -- as well as Rep. King, who has now called on the IRA to disband -- eventually helped eliminate the climate of tolerance around the IRA."
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